There's lots of unfindable information that's terribly relevant - information (or at least data) that's available only if you know precisely how to ask for it of precisely the right human being with precisely the right words and maybe the right tone of voice or the right letterhead.

If an organization can tax your patience by making it difficult for you to figure something out, it can destroy your desire for it.

Ed is right. And I’m somewhat annoyed at myself for misstating my intentions.

This would be better stated as:

10. Findability is power – Unfindable assets are waste.

The previous post showed how context and other factors change how we relate to information. But I was remiss in not making the whole point.

For business: information, people, and objects are all assets. In order for assets to be worth holding, they need to be usable in some way that creates more value than their cost of storage, management and maintenance.

Jen Zug shows us through her (very timely) tweet that we as consumers now expect findability. We expect to go to KUOW and intuitively find assets.

When the customer does not find what she wants, she gets annoyed.

Annoy me once, shame on you. Annoy me twice, I’m tweeting about it!

Ed’s comment speaks to waste from information not being immediately findable. Whether I’m looking for something at KUOW or within my own company – if I have to fight to find relevant information my patience will wear thin. My push to find the important and relevant information will end when my internal opportunity cost calculator in my brain says, “This is now too much trouble.”

On the flip side, when information is readily accessible, its value is astronomically higher. When I Google something and get the answer in less than a second, the cost of acquisition of the information is monstrously lower than its potential value when I use it for something or even if I discard it.

The required end-value of a use of data needs to be very measurable to obtain it in a person-to-person system. If I need something, it needs to be worth my time, the person I’m bothering, and the annoyance penalty for taking us both away from other things. In a computerized, rapid access world – that same information takes less than a second to obtain and inconveniences no one.

This means that casual queries based on conversations that could prove fruitful in the future are possible. Multiple avenues of inquiry can quickly be attempted, analyzed and discarded with minimal impact on corporate resources. Discovery of unexpected and highly useful information is now much more likely.

I’ll finish up by bringing up Jen Zug again … she expects the information to be findable. So should she. Now, the organization of KUOW has gained her ire. What would Jen have done if she found that content? More than likely she would have tweeted it. She would have said, “Incredible story today on KUOW about Vegemite Soup” (or something) and given a link.

23 January 2009

10. Findability is power – Unfindable information or people are irrelevant.

What is this picture? To some it may mean rescue at sea. To others it may be law enforcement coming to get them. To others it might be helicopters. Maybe piloting.

When we create information it is usually created under a given context. However, as we’ve discussed, Context is Fluid.

So an object created under a given context is not bound by that context.

Time spent searching for items we need to get our jobs done (people, expertise, information, how-to, etc.) is waste. In most businesses, a great deal of this information is tacit knowledge. To search for it, we wade through our professional networks at the office – we ask the people who sit around us who (might) be able to point us in the direction of someone else who (maybe) knows something.

This is wasted time which is often exacerbated by corporate structures, cultures, and rules which restrict access to knowledge by fiat or construct.

We can deal with this but making information more freely available. However, when business begins to open up and democratize the storage and distribution of information, the problem of searching and cataloging instantly becomes apparent.

The context under which information is created often dictates how it is stored. It’s storage then creates ease for searching under that context (e.g.: it’s filed under “Scuba Diving Disasters”) and not under other contexts (e.g.: I’m searching for “Worst underwater birthday parties ever”.).

This becomes even more complex when trying to build ad hoc teams made up of people with various reputations, skill sets, and locations.

In Social Media, tagging or folksonometric designations are given to objects of social value. A tag is a fluid designation given to an object.

Here we have a particularly sadistically delicious picture of a dessert at Jose Andres’ restaurant Zaytinya in Washington DC. When my friend Toni took this picture and put it on Flickr, she did not tag it. I added the tags, according to my context. They included Jose Andres, Food, Zaytinya, dessert and – because I wasn’t lucky enough to go myself – I added the tag “overwhelmingdesire”.

The final tag was clearly my context and not the photographers, the photographer ate the food – more than likely enjoyed it – and did not feel the overwhelming desire that I did.

While this is a rather glib example, the problem with contextual search is clear. Simply digitizing information or making it transparent does not necessarily make it findable. This principle calls on us to respect this dilemma and build systems that allow for objects to be found under a variety of contexts.

20 January 2009

This morning I stood alone in my office and watched Barack Obama be sworn in as the 44th President of the United States. When Aretha Franklin sang, I cried. And basically I didn’t fully stop until just now and if you come poke me I’ll probably start again.

And when one’s a 43 year old Nebraskan, one has to ask … why am I crying?

So I started listing reasons in my head, and I couldn’t stop.

It was like an emotion million-layer torte. Layer after layer after layer. Meaning upon meaning upon meaning.

For 8 years, I was involved with the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt – a project much bigger than me. But when working on it, you could feel the importance of it. The level of trust placed on us to memorialize, to publicize. To respect. To not forget. Was (and is for those who) overwhelming.

I never saw anything more successful than the Quilt. It is awe inspiring, it is personally inspiring.

Can it be that, to even a limited extent, we can now feel that inspirations as Americans, as human beings? That we can feel the trust and faith we place in each other – and be energized by that faith?

This morning I cried for the people who didn’t get to see today. My friend Corey Smith, my Great Aunt Billie Benson, my mentor Francis Edward Elliot, and Washington State Senator Cal Anderson. All from very different backgrounds, but all who would have been unified in the events of today.

President Obama said today:

Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill. Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched, but this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control — and that a nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous. The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our gross domestic product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on our ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart — not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good.

What would Jim, the social media and management consultant see in this? A call for an end to org-chart based trickle-down economic theory that rewards the hoarding / consolidation of resources, information, and power. The introduction of concepts like reach and the power of networks to balance distribution. The increase in opportunity inherent in a truly innovative and collaborative capitalist system.

Are we savvy enough to answer this call?

And because I am eternally silly: here’s the inauguration in Lego (minus the other 2 million people on the mall):

He describes a work around (a way to game the system): The Direct Line application for the iPhone which will automatically get you to a live person.

He describes why the current game fails: He says: ”If a customer is calling customer service, there was already a service failure — do not add insult to injury…”

and

He outlines some goals and objectives of a healthy version of this game:

Make it easy for the customer to speak with a human; the customer needs to speak with a human:

…even though there was a first failure somewhere, customer service can act as an effective and strategic response to the customer…

…help the customer feel successful.

IVR systems maximize for the amount a company is spending on customer support. Pragmatically, companies can argue that people get information faster with in IVR because the IVR directs calls quickly and effectively to the appropriate representative.

But people like Pete (and myself) who work with lean systems and efficiency for a living, would pick up this iPhone app in a heartbeat. The game here for the user is to feel better faster. We are going to feel better with a live representative long before a seemingly endless session of pushing buttons.

(And, for the love of god, someone tell me why every system asks for my account number and then -- after I spend forever entering all the digits and having some robot read them all back to me … very … slowly – the freaking agent asks for my account number again!?")

So companies need to ask themselves what are the true games of customer service. Pete has done a great job of saying what the game for the customer is and showing that Direct Line gives the user the ability to play that game on their terms.

In my post on Pushmi-Pullyu Management, I discussed the opportunity for subversion to be an avenue for breaking the chains of poor management. I was pleasantly surprised – but honestly surprised – by how that last paragraph captured people’s attention.

Today Brian Kerr drew my attention to the Mr. Fish / Harpers cartoon above. And we see snowflakes, no two alike, floating in an undifferentiated universe. Both misattributing. Both blaming. As they fall to the ground.

Compare this to Thomas Dolby’s lyrics. Insects, dominoes – unique yet undifferentiated – depending on your view. Each adding up to a swarm, a chain reaction – when one insect or domino chooses to act in the right way at the right time.

Writing by one small, easily imprisonable, Solzhenitsyn can create massive change. People of good conscience can create a better world. But Solzhenitsyn was imprisoned. The snowflakes are pejorative.

Specialized organs for exchange of materials between the blood and the external environment; for example

organs like the lungs and intestine that add materials to the blood and

organs like the lungs and kidneys that remove materials from the blood and deposit them back in the external environment.

Historically, businesses have not treated communication like blood, it has been treated more like a resource. A resource is a commodity. These are held in one location and distributed – usually from a central authority.

Social media and Lean Management Principles have shown us that when people have information, they tend to do things with it. When people have direction, they tend to move in that direction. When people are given updates, they feel involved. When they are given feedback, they tend to improve.

The modern business needs similar systems to ingest, purify, and distribute information. This is a communication circulatory system. This system works automatically and naturally.

Its genetic structure lives on in many businesses and relationships, however. Note the Pushmi Pullyu’s main characteristics:

Two heads in opposing directions

One very firm body

No visible way of cleanly eliminating waste

Hugh Lofting wrote The Story in 1920. At this point, stovepiping and arbitrary specialization was a new art. So, for Lofting, the best way to solve the inherent conflicts in a Pushmi Pullyu structure was … stovepiping and specialization in the service of organization and civilization.

“I notice," said the duck, "that you only talk with one of your mouths. Can't the other head talk as well?"

"Oh, yes," said the pushmi-pullyu. "But I keep the other mouth for eating--mostly. In that way I can talk while I am eating without being rude. Our people have always been very polite."

This might have satisfied us when we were 7 and reading Dolittle books, but now it raises all sorts of obvious questions.

What if the other mouth decides it wants to say something?

How can an object with two distinct brains and skulls be an “I”?

At a moment of panic, how do you not rip yourself in half?

With two pairs of legs facing in opposite directions, don’t you find knee bending a bit challenging?

And we begin to see some of the inherent difficulties in an entity or organization that designs itself with multiple heads and structurally opposing viewpoints.

Decisions are made not through collaboration of heads moving in the same direction – but are made by combat between groups that see themselves as the true “head” of the company and making no effort at alignment. Alignment would bring the other “head” in line with their “head” – thereby taking away their assumed importance.

The company calls itself "a company” but a little examination reveals that the company is a group of discrete adversarial units with no choice but to do business together.

One Very Firm Body

The Pushmi Pullyu’s physiology won’t even allow it to re-org into a forward facing unit. Its spine would snap.

Many companies, through years of policies, procedures and power moves, are hopelessly mired in Pushmi Pullyu architectures. We see policies:

forbidding inter-group communication.

making it difficult for staff to transfer within the company.

overly restricting decision making to managers that centralize power.

creating highly regimented rules around information dissemination.

The policies make organizations inflexible and destined for extinction - which means they soon won’t be around any more. Slight changes to the ecosystem of a rigid organization can yield exquisite damage.

Waste Elimination

The Pushmi Pullyu’s whimsical design is good for story telling and power hoarding, but it is not so good for sustainable management. The Pushmi Pullyu doesn’t even have the equipment to rid itself of waste.

Businesses are not immune from this seemingly impossible oversight. Many of the self-professed problems coming today from the big 3 auto makers are not dissimilar from those described in some of the companies in Jim Collins’ book Good to Great.

Scott Paper is one such case study of Collins’. The company was hopelessly mired in a Pushmi Pullyu dynamic. Product lines that were part of the company history but untenable in an overly commoditized marketplace. There was a lot of internal political capital in those existing products. Scott Paper’s leadership, however, knew that those products – while known and comfortable to the organization – were not an avenue for either stability or growth.

The waste eliminated here is massive. Political waste, policy waste, underperforming product line waste. That is Olympic medal winning waste elimination. The Big 3 Automakers, like Scott Paper before them, will need to not just re-org, but entirely re-invent their corporate physiology in order to survive.

To achieve this, goal alignment and transparency are paramount. Opposing heads cannot be part of the corporate architecture.

(This does not mean disagreement isn’t good, it does mean that institutionalized opposition will not be tolerated.)

Your So-Called Pushmi Pullyu Life

So, you are in a Pushmi Pullyu situation (or maybe more than one). What do you do?

The answer is simple. Subversion.

the act of subverting: the state of being subverted ; especially: a systematic attempt to overthrow or undermine a government or political system by persons working secretly from within

Nothing short of subversion will undo such deep structural divisions within a company. They were there before you and people don’t know enough to change them.

I vote for social subversion in the service of positive change.

Talk to people you’re not supposed to. Form alliances between you and “enemy” groups in the company. Work to create win-win funding opportunities for projects that involve both groups. Find ways to share staff. Increase intra-organizational involvement.

Principle #8. Immediacy in all things – Strike while the iron is hot. Eat when the food is fresh.

We’ve discussed in previous principles how information wants to be free, information should be findable and searchable and that people want to be good community members.

Have you ever been on a mission?

We consider ourselves on a mission when we have clear goals, we have an idea of how to satisfy those goals, and we are somewhat excited about achieving them. A mission differs from a task by our emotional investment.

Previous chapters have also discussed how people’s emotional investment in an activity or organization relies heavily on transparency and the availability of information.

Delays are insults to missions.

Any delay in a mission belies the importance of the mission. Delays say to the missionary: your important task is far less important to me than it is to you. This is invalidating and demotivating.

Immediacy therefore becomes crucial to maintaining motivation.

If people within an organization remain motivated, they work faster, they are more creative, and frankly, they give a damn. Demotivated team members simply do not perform as well.

When devising rules around information provision and flow in an organization, principle #8 should be kept in mind at all times. How important is this information when compared to slowing down the company? Is it more important to hide this information than to allow people the opportunity to use it for inspiration?

05 January 2009

Principle #7 - Context is Fluid – How you view an object today will be different tomorrow. Don’t destroy tomorrow’s value.

In my humble opinion, most of the business failures we’ve seen in the tech sector are due to an utter disregard for this principle.

Context is fluid. The tech you are in love with that your company is building is certainly cool. In fact, it’s cooler than you think.

The Peril of Focus

I have seen several sites, applications and ideas become stifled because they limit their own market. A singular focus to specific use cases has been lauded as good management.

The reasons for this are legendary: Focusing on specific use cases avoids scope creep. Focusing on specific use cases increases predictability and ensures a logical development cycle.

The problem here isn’t necessarily the use cases themselves, it’s the focus on a specific static context or set of contexts.

To be sure, everyone needs a plan. Your trip home needs a route. But you should have the flexibility to re-evaluate that route based on context.

If your route included what used to be this bridge, would you be taking it now?

No. Context has changed.

Your product’s context changes all the time. People find new uses for it. People eliminate old uses for it. Your intended use may bore the hell out of people, but they might find another use that works great for them and could still make you rich.

Despite this, business often limits its own products’ contexts.

How Context Works

In my 2007 post on the Seven Contexts of Human Understanding, I discuss how context radically changes based on perspective. Geographic, political, organizational, team, personal, religious, time, etc. Each perspective changes the context of what you might encounter.

And context changes based on the situation, and quickly. A baseball player at bat does very different things with 2 strikes against him than he does with none.

When we create a product – any product – and narrowly define its use, we practically limit its use. No, every product shouldn’t be able to do every thing. But when creating your design, ask yourself “Are my assumptions limiting this product’s potential?”

Social media has been great for taking an idea devised for one purpose and re-purposing it. Social media and Web 2.0 has also been great for building in repurposing. The API is now mandatory – no API and you are dead.

Why? Because everyone knows they have their own context and they don’t want to wait for you to enable it.

So, no API or a self-limiting feature set is a rocket sled ride to liquidation sale.